Lipgloss and Marlboros: A Collection of Drabbles
by weheartscorose
Summary: She was nurturing and smart, he was cynical and distrusting and the story of Jughead Jones was just that; in his head. Jug's life revolved around a small group of things - laughs with Archie, the lace that Betty insists of wearing and stolen cigarettes but when Betty starts to take over his mind, Jug doesn't know what to do, or at least, doesn't know how to act on it. Lemons!
1. Chapter 1

_**Lipgloss and Marlboros: A Collection of Drabbles**_

 _Juliet (Please forget your Romeo)_

* * *

"You keep calling me Juliet."

She looked me dead in the eye as if she was almost mad, never had I seen such a reaction to what most girls would consider quite a compliment from the circles of romantic literature.

I more or less see it as either a satisfying comment to make a girl fall for you or the most annoying and unsatisfactory series of events that lead to nothing but frustration. Is that not the love ballad of Romeo and Juliet?

She tightens her long blonde ponytail and then spins on the balls of her feet to look at me, slapping her hands to the sides of her hips. "And can you please find another way to get up here!" she says rushing to the window, scowling at my ladder leaning against her window. "My parents will kill me, Romeo!"

I try not to make it so obvious that my voice has hitched in my throat and I straighten my beanie before smiling at her. "Don't say I'm your Romeo, Bets. I never have been."

She frowns a bit and I can almost hear her mind ticking. Betty Cooper has always had a way of expressing her thoughts through the looks on her face. I have known her for so long, I was somewhat of a clairvoyant to a small group of people that we call our friends.

She must have felt she had offended me, forgetting that good ol' Juggie doesn't have the sensitive heart that her beloved Archie does. "But-bu-" I cut her off.

"But that would be fair Archie Montague," I say, giving her a wink which earns me a shove on her behalf.

She sits back down on the edge of her bed and lays back, her lacy dress riding up and as much as I wanted to look away, be a decent human being and the respectable young man I have tried oh so hard to make myself into, I couldn't help but notice how her blushed skin was reaching further up and up and...

"Jug!"

I snap my head away from her smooth legs and quickly up to her face. "Yeah?"

"I got a message from V, you interested in a bit of a bite?"

I didn't want to admit it, but I was hunting for an excuse not to go. I had blown Archie off but unfortunately, he is not blind and he will see the ladder leaning against Betty's picket fenced house. My hands had been so deep in my pockets for a while now and I wonder if she's noticed but I shake my pockets. "No money."

Betty laughs and runs her teeth over her bottom lip. "And I will have your back – or Veronica will."

My face blushes but it shouldn't – dad had given me a one hundred dollar bill when I crossed him in the street just yesterday which I start fingering in my pocket. "Bets..."

"If it's too much of a girly date for you, we'll call Arch to join us."

I cock an eyebrow. "And detach him from the string and wood connected to his side? I dunno Bets," I say teasingly.

I scan around her room while she lays down with her head in her hands. So many trinkets, such a big room. So much space and flowers and photos of her and Archie, photos of us three when we were kids, polka dots, lace. So much lace. "So much lace," I voice out loud.

She sits up and sniggers a bit. "I hate it..."

"So much lace from the top of your bed to the edge of your thighs," I mutter but I immediately bite my tongue because why the hell did I say that out loud? The lace may be pink and creeping up her body like a vine but I should not be paying so much attention...

Betty sighed and ran a hand over her hair. "It's so girly. I keep saying that but I never do anything about it."

I shrug and sit down next to her. "Make it womanly then?"

Betty rolls her eyes and shoves me again, making my body move and unbalance. "Nothing about me is womanly..." she looks down and blushes, red spreading along her face and neck. "Sorry Juggie, I'm being awkward..."

Again Betty Cooper has left me with a lump in my throat and I try not to make it so obvious. "Well, your shirt tells me otherwise," I say, reaching over and brushing my fingers along her collarbone and begging to brush the swell of her breasts.

She forms goosebumps where my fingers were and shudders a bit. "Have you always been good with your words?"

"Are they working?" I ask a little too loudly. "I'm joking, it's like a coping mechanism – the more I use my mouth, the less people ask of me. It's like they don't know what I'm talking about half the time."

She licks her lips and rolls over on her bed to face me. "I wonder how well you use that mouth, Jug," she seems to say in a whisper but I think I have turned supersonic because it feels like it is the loudest thing I have ever heard. "But I am more intrigued in wondering what that brain knows."

Her chest rises and falls and her hands move up to rest on my forearm. The many times that I've stared into the blue eyes of Betty Cooper have not seem to have prepared me for how deep a blue her eyes are or the spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Not the meet ups in the tree house, not the sleepovers at Archie's that she would crash, not the years we've spent in the same class had prepared me. _Nothing_ prepared me and I appreciate not being prepared because she seems that much more... sexy?

"My mind?" I try and say steadily. "Well, my mind tells me that you've moved on from the Romeo that is Archie."

Her gentle hands seem so heavy as they move down my body, edging the end of my shirt and then long fingers touching my skin along my hips and onto my torso. "I want to be brave, Juggie."

I turn to her too now, gripping my lip with my teeth, trying not to shake or feel too much of her hands on my skin. My lips and teeth can feel the heat of her mouth. Shit, if this is what gets me riled, then so be it. Connecting of the minds first has definitely played it's role in my longing for Betty. As much as I wished I still thought of Betty as my friend, the wishes were being pushed out to the side, punched and mauled by what I am starting to detect is... _love?_

We stared. She smiled. Her lips brushed mine. Her hands grew bolder, they moved up and down me, her chest pushed against mine. She opened her mouth and took my lip from my own teeth and in between hers.

"Looks like you're the brave one, Bets."

My hands snake up under the lace, my teeth are on her neck and the smell of vanilla is so strong, my nose burns. She arches her back to get closer and I use that mouth she had just questioned to show her what it can do.

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_ Hey fellow Bugheads! Just a quick drabble that I may add to if I gain enough interest. Taking a break from Harry Potter at the moment so if you enjoyed this small snippet, let me know and I will continue!

PS, this story will only be a series of one shots/drabbles - not a full blown story... at this stage at least.


	2. Chapter 2

_Envy Green (I shouldn't feel this way)_

 _ps, Lemons/smut._

* * *

The pounding of the music around me just drove me to become quicker at my allocated task. I felt such a fumbling idiot as I fought with the pocket of my own jeans to try and pull out a Marlboro cigarette packet that I had stolen from dad and at the same time I also internally scolded myself because Veronica was right, my acid wash jeans don't match the suit jacket I am wearing.

Note to self, stop listening to the advice of Veronica Lodge.

I shove the stick between my lips, light it up. Inhale, exhale.

Why was I here? It was the biggest night of the town, Riverdale Dance, it was huge. It was warm. Tonight I won't worry about which couch I'm going to crash on and at least it wasn't my dad's. He knows how much I hate it there but the doors always open and I can't complain. I _shouldn't_ complain. But naturally, I do.

The night was – for lack of a better term – _dark_. The unnatural fog that was coating Riverdale made it seem like some scene from a horror movie. It _was_ a horror movie, it was my own _personal_ horror movie and hence the reason I'm tucked up out the front of the school with a cigarette in my mouth trying to dodge the peering eyes of the students that have all seemed to inherited such a knack for spying from all of their mothers. Can I blame them? No. Do I see why they would all have an interest in what I'm doing? No, not unless they all have something against lung cancer.

I chuck the cigarette butt on the ground and instantly go for another one, nothing is quite like filling your lungs with tar and other ingredients. Despite my oh so positive thoughts, I hear the clicking of high heels coming down behind me. "You got another one?" I hear Veronica ask behind me.

I don't turn around to see her but I place the packet on the step next to me to show her she can help herself. I hear her sigh and I can just tell she's rolling her eyes at me right now, nevertheless, her heels gets into my peripheral vision and then she slumps down next to me, her arms in the air and a hand putting a cigarette to her mouth, she holds out her hands for the lighter and hitches her red dress up over her knees. "Don't tell anyone this, Jones, but I'm glad to get out of that sweat-fest. It was getting rough in there!" she says, nudging me with her shoulder.

I exhale loudly and turn to look at her, her always brighter than the sun smile etched into her cheeks. How she can remain like that with out cracking her face is further than my mind can comprehend. "I just needed a break by myself," I try and say smoothly but her piercing eyes tell me she knows I'm lying.

"Jug, Betty is wondering where you are... I said that maybe you had gone to the bathroom but I saw you come out here, it's a wonder you hadn't gone home!" Veronica replies, she tilts her head to look into my eyes. "Why did you go?"

I try and laugh it off, I smile at Veronica. "Like you said, it's a sweat-fest in there," I say exhaling.

"Don't bullshit me, Jug. I don't know why you're so uptight, Archie wanted a dance with Betty, that's it!"

I shrug and try to keep my voice steady but it's hard. I should be used to this. Archie gets the girls. That's his thing, my thing? Well I hate to sound ridiculous but for the sake of proving my point, I am a lone wolf. "Doesn't matter, _Ronnie_ ," I say, knowing that it will annoy her. "She's Archie's girl."

"She is not Archie's girl," Veronica says sourly and I know I have made a mistake in saying that, "She's no ones girl! She's her own girl, ok?"

I throw up my hands in defeat, "Fine! Sorry, but you know what I mean."

"Jughead Jones, are you so stupid in thinking that two best friends can't have a dance together?," she shakes her head in disbelief. "I cannot believe I am even having this conversation with you of all people, seriously. Ok, fine, you can be your snotty-nosed childlike self," she says standing up and throwing the cigarette butt on the ground before stomping on it and me now believing she's imaging it was me. "But you're coming back into the dance with me and we shall hit the dancefloor and then you tell me if that makes me your girl, ok?"

A semi-depressed Jughead might like to be alone but something is telling me I should not be arguing with Veronica. She holds out her hand to me and I grab it slowly, wondering what the hell I'm going to be walking into when I get back in there. "Fine," I reply stiffly.

She smiles in victory. "Envy green ain't your colour, sweetheart. You gotta learn how to trust."

It may not be my colour, but I feel it suits me anyways, even if it clashes with my guts.

* * *

As I had expected, I looked like an idiot. Not only did I look like an idiot but I felt like one too. Archie was caught up in the corner with Val when I had got in and Bets was just pissed at me. Hence the reason I am now standing outside her house at it's two in the morning, ready to get my grovelling knees prepared.

I quickly made my way up the ladder to her bedroom and pried open the window, falling in a little too loudly into her room. "Archie?" she asks quietly. "Honestly, if you're going to have Valerie over at night can you please close your window?"

I snigger. Ever the voyeur was our Archie Andrews. "It's me," I say quietly. "Uh – Jughead."

"Juggie?" she asks, quickly sitting up in her bed. "What a pleasant surprise considering..." she says and I can tell she's being sarcastic.

"Ok, I own it, I'm sorry Bets," I say moving over to her bed. She pats the bed as if for me to sit down so I kick off my shoes and fall down. "If it's any consolation, you looked beautiful tonight," I sigh and look at my feet. "And apparently envy green isn't my colour."

She rolls her eyes at me, wrapping her arms around my waist. "Sweet talker huh?"

"I can be if you want me to be..." I say looking her in the eye.

"You were jealous?" she asks me, and I can feel her breath on my lip and then she lightly kisses me.

I groan against her lips and then nod. I was more than jealous, I think I was turning crazy. I know I shouldn't think anything of Betty and Arch, but Betty and I never made anything official and well... I take her lip between my teeth and tug a little. "I was very jealous."

She whimpers a little but I feel her hands travel to the front of my jeans, she starts tugging at the button and zipper, "Get these off, Juggie."

"Bets -" I was cut off when she forced my shoulders on to the bed.

She starts working quickly but I can't work fast enough and I didn't have enough hands to touch all the things I want to touch so I atleast try and pull my jeans off, she already had the edges of my shirt and was yanking it up over my head. Her mouth is all over my chest, her slick tongue was playing on the crook of my neck and then her hands were all of a sudden in my pants as if maybe she had the exact amount of hands I was after.

I could feel her grinding on the hardening patch of denim as my hands travelled up to her cleavage, I dove head first into her breast, biting at what I could, feeling her with the tips of my fingers making her moan. The flannel shirt she was wearing was discarded on the floor so quickly I had barely noticed that it was mine which just made me harder. "You wear that to bed Bets?" I ask.

She arches her back so I can get a better grip of her cleavage but I can make out a smile on her lips. "You like it?"

"I love it," I groan. I tug at the lace that was between her thighs and slap it against her body making her flinch.

"Off," I groan as my fingers run along the seams of her panties. "Off... please..." I beg.

My erection was digging into her thigh. She whimpers as she feels me against her and she pushes deeper into my hand as I play with the lace. I feel like I can't keep the rhythm of my breathing, and even though we haven't done this often, I all of a sudden know what I am doing. Her panties slid off and I look down, trying not to make it obvious that I am in awe of what I am looking at.

"Mmm," I moaned as her hand tightened on the denim between us. She pushed down harder on me. "Fine," I say in defeat, I take my jeans off.

Her hands shake a bit as she grabs back onto my bare skin and my own hands and nails dig into her hips so hard, I know it will mark.

My mouth made it to the skin between her neck and ear, sucking "Jug," she sighs, her breath catching in her throat as I sucked her, my thumbs brushing over her nipples. I start throbbing so uncomfortably in her hand, I buck involuntarily. "Jug, I need you now," she begs.

Oh honey, don't you see I need you too? I grip on tighter to her breasts and take them into my mouth, licking them gently at first, then biting down softly. "Fuck," I mumble against her mouth.

I capture her lip between my teeth and pull harder but as I pull, her legs seem to part and she leans back on her bed. Willing and waiting.

I rub my hand against her mound and her hips move closer to my touch. "Do you like that, Bets?" she seems caught off guard by my question and just nods. I shake my head. "Betty," I say again, rubbing harder. "Do you like that?"

"Yeah," she stutters, her eyes closing and her head falling back.

"Yes?" I question, stopping my fingers from delving further. "Yes...?"

Her eyes open wider and she grips onto my wrist and tries to move my fingers backwards and forwards herself. "Jug..." she whispers.

"Yes Jug..."

"Yes Jughead!" she snaps, tightening the vice on my wrist. "Yes Jughead!"

I growl before throwing my body on top of hers, pulling the skin of her neck between my teeth. My length brushes against her mound and quickly I'm entering her with a low groan and Betty's head thrown back it didn't take me long after all the teasing.

Afterwards I took Betty into my arms, ever the gentleman that I am, I must apologise so I brush my thumb over Betty's face, "Sorry Bets," I say quietly. "I didn't mean to be an asshole tonight."

"At least I can say to V that envy green is in fact the perfect colour for you."

I stare up at the pink ceiling of Betty Cooper's room and smile to myself. Though it was a warm night and I was right, I didn't have to think too hard about where I was going to sleep tonight, I didn't feel more at ease.

Tonight I had sex with a girl that I love and I wonder if maybe, just maybe, for her tonight was all about getting that envy green out of Archie who I knew was still awake only metres away from the bedroom window.

Note to self: Start listening to the advice of Veronica Lodge and try and decipher what trust is.

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_ Review if you want more!


	3. Chapter 3

**_Distractions_**

* * *

"Liars never prosper, Juggie, you know that." She was dead serious, the look on her face was priceless, her eyebrows knitted together, her eyes wide and glaring.

I smirk and lay back on the floor of her bedroom, flicking through the pages of a discarded book. "Clearly you've never been part of an all-female-bitch session, it's the only way to prosper."

" I don't like getting caught up in the gossip..." She turns back to look in her mirror scantily clad in her trademark lace and high pony tail, her legs were right in my view and I could almost follow her long legs up and to... she kicks me. Hard. "Can you concentrate? V wants us there in 45 minutes and you're busy here staring at me like I have some sort of problem. I think you've been hanging out with V and Kev for too long," she says looking down at me. "They always seem to think I have a problem," she adds, a small smile playing on her lips.

"Everyone has a problem. I have a problem. _Ronnie_ , well, what isn't a problem to her?" I pull at her foot and throw the book on the floor, she knew how to stir me and as much as I would appreciate my inner self ignoring her digs, she knew just how to set me off. "You got guts, Bets," I say, kneeling next to her vanity chair. "And not much clothing on..." She giggles and shoves me away with her elbow, causing me to move back but I put my hands together as if in prayer. "You're a Goddess, you know that Cooper?"

She laughs again and rolls her eyes, shoving her homework to the side, why one would study in relative nakedness is beyond me but I refuse to bring it up. I am nothing if not a person who is welcoming to Betty Cooper's extreme comfort. "And what does that make you, huh?" she says raising her eyebrows. " A God?"

I snicker, me? A God? In comparison to her, I'm nothing. "It makes me a very religious man preaching about your beauty," I whisper, "Either that or I would be a crazed man accusing you of witch craft," I add with a shrug.

"You sure know how to brighten things don't you," she replies rolling her eyes. I look down at her lap but her hand reaches for my jaw and she pulls my head up. "Jug," she says, lifting me higher to brush my lips with hers. "You and your crazy quips will be the death of me," she adds softly.

Her tongue edges in slowly. Painfully slow. Like a slow drag of a cigarette. The vanilla that is her mouth edging in just as slow. And then I was rudely pulled out of my trance when she pushes me away as my hands move up her calves.

"Elizabeth!" I whine jokingly but she doesn't meet my eyes.

"Gotta get ready, Juggie. V is going to kill us and we still have to go get Archie!" she begins concentrating on her lips and lipgloss as though not to get a smudge out of line, but her and I both know she is perfect and that was a sin she would never commit. "And if you keep distracting me then we will never end up going."

"Doesn't sound that bad to me, tell me how I can distract." I say but she glares at me.

I get up and try and shake my need for Betty off me. Sometimes it was too much. Sometimes I just needed her near me or I need her touching me or sometimes I just needed my lips on her neck and the swell of her breasts and... Shit, I needed a cigarette.

I open the window and swing my legs over the ledge but a whoosh through the air and a smack to the head tells me that Bets just threw something at me or something more sinister as in, she may be trying to kill me. "What, Bets?" I say turning to look over my shoulder at her.

"Are you going?" she asks me, the look on her face makes my heart swell a little. Even though we're not official, well, I have become an avid liar, trying to convince my inner self that I am not reliant on the blonde in front of me.

"I'm not going, just gonna have a smoke," I tell her. "I'll stay on the ladder, I'll lean over here."

She gives me a lopsided grin. "Ok, be quick."

"Why? Scared we'll be late to the dinner party?"

She just shrugs and turns back to the mirror. "Maybe, it depends on how quick we'll be..."

I raise an eyebrow. She was testing me, either that or she knew how to control me and fuck, it was working. I stayed cool though, one must keep their head during temptation and I congratulate myself on my success.

"I will just finish this," I call through the window, flicking my cigarette.

Betty comes up to the window and knocks, waving me to come in and I wanted to leap in the air, dive through that damn window, take her on the floor. But I didn't. I remained cool and calm.

Just.

I stride through the window and back into her room, her pink spray bottle being thrown around, trying to remove the smell of my cigarette in the air. "I was out there for six minutes, Bets," I mutter as I pull her closer to me. "And you still don't have any more clothes on."

She giggles next to me and she spins, knocking her hips against mine. Making things a hell of a lot uncomfortable for me. We move on and the awkward battle ensues. Too much tongue, not enough hands, too much grinding on her behalf and a hell of a pair of increasingly tightening jeans. My mouth finds the crook of her neck and I hear her gasp, making me smile against her skin. I smudge the vanilla tasting lipgloss along her mouth, a slick trail of shimmer across her neck as well but she keeps grinding closer. And closer. And closer. And...

"Jug! Oh shit man, ahh!" The voice of Archie Andrews fills the air and a hiss in my ear tells me that Betty was not a happy person.

"Get out Arch!" she almost yells at him. "We're studying!"

"Studying?" Both my best friend and I say in unison. Betty shakes her head at me and bends down carefully to pick up my flannel from the ground.

"You're weak, Juggie," she says, sitting back down on her bed and picking up her gloss to reapply. Somehow I feel that she does not like to be interrupted...

"Jug?" Arch says, "Uh, want to go sit outside?"

I just shake my head, there was no way I could turn to face him in this condition.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ I'm having so much fun with this. Please review! I'd love to know if I should carry on, fellow Bugheads.

Love, Cara.


	4. Chapter 4

_**The Dark**_

* * *

Skin on skin.

Smooth skin and rough hands. I pull.

I can't pull any closer. I can still taste tobacco on my lips and taste her hair on the tip of my tongue, her nails dig into my skin. Breaking of skin.

I can taste sweat in the air and the sourness of her perfume from her neck. My nose burns from the strong smell of vanilla. Her back arches just to get a little closer.

Tonight I sleep in a warm bed, satin between me and the rest of the world. No amount of math was going to separate me from the warmth of the sheets.

My nails dragged over the rough gap filled lacy bra. My teeth get caught too as I bite down.

The aftermath is filled with her laughter. I hate to admit it but I was enchanted by her, by her voice, by her laughter.

She talks about things that feel like the clashing of thunder. For such a small body her laughter booms like lightening, her hands feel like steady rain on my arms. Her kisses, well, how does one describe something so other worldly?

"How did we end up here?" I ask her.

"We left Archie and Veronica and came up here, don't you remember?" she answers me literally.

I shake my head against her, her hands smoothing over my hair, her cheer skirt tucked under my head like a pillow. "No, I mean, how did we get here? You and I, the only people on the earth."

She chuckles – she thinks I'm funny. I would tell a million ill thought out jokes just to get her to laugh at me, to think I was the funny one in her world. "If the earth was this room, then that would make sense."

Doesn't she see that this room was my world? My earth, her bed, my new home. The distance between her room and the floor of Archie's room which has been my home for a long time is so small, a twenty second walk but in this moment, the distance was great, there would be an ocean that could fit between here and there now, that's how I felt. "The earth is this room," I correct her.

"Oh yeah, and why is that?"

"Because you're in it."

Betty inhales deeply, causing me to shiver but my rough fingers still play against her skin, making her move closer to me. "You say so many things, sometimes I don't understand you."

"You don't like them?" I ask her, my lips against hers.

"I love them," she sighs. "You make everything better."

"You make everything better to me too," I tell her honestly.

"They say I need fixing – my mom and dad – I don't know if I do, but maybe I did. Who knows?"

I laugh quietly. "Everyone needs fixing, Betty, I'm sure you can think of a million things that they need fixing."

"I don't think I want to be fixed. Sometimes there's a lot of dark..." she trails off.

There was no dark in her, there were varying shades of colour pulsing through her, some deeper in tone, "You're not dark." I couldn't tell her about the dark that laced my own mind or how sometimes, in the spur of the moment, I try to salvage my own glue within in and feebly try and put things back together in my mind erratically. She wasn't the glue but she made me feel like I didn't need to keep erratically piecing myself together. "I love you," I whisper. "I love you," I try again with more depth.

"I love you too, Jughead."

I smile to myself. "I know I'm a little..." A little different. A little strange. A little off-rail. "A little weird..."

"A little?" she laughs.

"Well, yeah, a whole lot. But that's not what you're supposed to say," I say amusedly. "You're supposed to tell me how normal I am."

"I don't lie to you, Jug. You know that."

I was barely in the room. I felt like I had drifted into some sort of alternate world. Just me, Betty and the satin sheets. "Thanks for not humouring me."

She turns in the bed to look at me in the eye. "You know I mean it when I tell you I love you right?"

I nod against her forehead. "You're different," I say quietly. "I don't even know how to describe it. You're amazing."

She shakes her head. "Don't, I'm just me."

No, she doesn't understand. "You're like... I can't get enough air in my lungs or," I sigh, starting to feel stupid. "You make my mind spin, Betty. You make me want to ask you a million questions just to hear your voice."

"Jug," she says warily. "I'm not that great."

I couldn't stop talking about her. I needed her to know what I saw, to see what I see, to listen to what I hear when it was just us two in the universe. "Your like I will never get enough water or maybe I don't feel enough until I'm with you. And," I stutter. "And I know I'm more of a shell of an engineless car," she laughs at my comment.

"You are not!" she argues, beating at my chest. "You have to be the truest person I know."

I sigh and inhale, vanilla. "I just want you to know I might not have much to offer, but you feel like home."

She pulls herself closer to me. Never close enough. Her lips in the crook of my neck. "You're my home too, Jughead."

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_ Just a little place for me to put a couple of one-shots in. I won't be investing much time to this as I am currently spending every waking moment on my other Bughead Fic, Vanilla Lips and Cigarette Tips so if you're interested, go and read that one. That story will be a full sized fic and has a lot of Betty and Juggie!


	5. Chapter 5

_**Just Breathe**_

* * *

Breathe.

 _Just breathe and let go._

I hold on tighter.

 _Breathe; just breathe and let go_. He told me to. He was teaching me to.

I can't.

He seemed to be the only light on in the room. He walks in so slowly, palms facing me as if to say he's unarmed. He always walked in so warily and brought in with him a sense of peace and ease. I want to stand up and snatch him, pulling into me all that sense of peace and ease. I wanted to revel in it, engulf the ease he bought with him. I wanted to drink it; _drink him_. I wanted him. I think I _need_ him.

He was so light. Like Winter-chill easing into Autumn-leaves and orange tinted grey pavements. His touch was always reassuring and as if he fitted right into my burning frustration; he covered it like a safety blanket. The burning was out in an instant when he was safety enveloping me; swallowing me whole.

Speaking of _burning_. The burning had started again, the flames started licking me from the inside, all gasoline and matches – dynamite tick, tick, ticking. The flames were coming from all directions at me from the outside, now. I can feel them digging into my palms in the form of my sharp nails.

My head was starting to feel like it was entrapped in a vice. I had almost trained myself to ignore the constant throbbing but the stress I was dealing with at the moment was the vice tightening and there was only one place that could hold it at bay.

 _Jughead_.

I was supposed to be perfect. _As-pretty-as-a-picture_ sort of perfect. _Dark-rimmed-eyes-and-pink-lips_ sort of perfect. _Tighten my ponytail, let lace dance on me, I am satin in rough hands_. Mom had taught me that I needed to be perfect and I needed to work hard because no one was going to serve me the world on a silver platter in the end.

But selfishly, I think that might be how it was turning out and everything was at my very finger tips because Jughead fit seamlessly into my world and gave me everything I wanted and Jughead was _home_. He was my home. My silver platter never shone as brightly in any other hands other than Jughead's.

He was standing here, in my room; hands out and waiting for me, as they had been for the last two days, the arms I could barely bring myself to embrace.

It was so dark here – in my mind. I was shutting down and I didn't know what to do. _Shut down; go on, shut down, it's too hard_. The only thing I knew how to do was to shut down, so piece by piece, I shut down a little more and Jughead was here to just _be here_. He brought me coffee, he read me out his latest works, he laughed about Archie and V and how they're _not_ in a relationship. He was just here and he didn't stop anything to try and accommodate poor old Betty Cooper. He was the normalcy I forever crave.

He sits down on the edge of my bed and I don't think we've spoken properly since I shut down. Once upon a time, he gave up the chance to be part of his own family just to try and fit in a little oddly in my stupid one and now everything that I had ever dreamed of was going to begin in a different city even if I was there or not.

My mom and dad are at a war with each other even though Polly hasn't been pregnant in over a year. I don't think they'd ever stop being at war with each other – I don't remember when they were ever _not_ at war with each other.

 _Go and see the world, go and be what you want to be_. That was supposed to be my mantra but my world is in the room with me and what I want to be? I just want to be normal. _Go and see the world, go and be what you want to be. Go and see the world…_

I can barely pry my eyes away from my hands. I want to look up at him, tell him I'm sorry and that I just want to sit in here and watch all his favourite movies. But I can't look up, I can't meet his eyes. I know he's sunkissed, I can smell it on his jacket that smells like the sun and menthols. I just want to lie with him and talk about crap. I just want him.

"Betty," he says gently. "It's not healthy sitting in here all day, you need your daily dose of vitamin D. Though not too much as you don't want to get sunburnt."

His attempts at humour always throws me and I laugh a little before letting my hands free and stretching them out, cracking my knuckles against my thighs. "I'll crack a window," I reply weakly.

"Ah, I don't want to be rude or anything but it's getting really stale in here and I think that your mom coming in to light candles," he says pointing to my dresser. "Is sort of her way of saying it without having to say it."

I roll my eyes and sure enough, there were several candles burning in the corner that I hadn't noticed before. Mom would have snuck in at some point to check on me and to make sure I hadn't done anything stupid, while I was asleep. "That has to be the nicest way anyone has ever told me that I smell, Jughead Jones."

"People tell you that often?" he says chuckling but I see his hands are a little shaky as they reach out for mine, I let up and slowly meet his hands with mine.

He folds my hands over and looks at my palms, four small marks on each palm, the red a little brighter than the last time I had looked at them. I try to look away from him, I feel my cheeks turning red just like my palms. "I…" I don't finish.

"Don't say anything, it's ok, just breathe," he tells me.

"I don't think I can," I mutter, feeling the pressure building in my chest.

"If you're talking, then you can. Come on, in and out." he says, his own chest rising and falling and I try to match my breaths with his. His eyes seem dark-rimmed and blue-bright. His small smile is comforting and safe but his concern is dripping and oozing all over the carpet of my room, leaching into me. Spreading like a drop of ruby-red blood in a pool of water.

I keep going, _in and out_ , our chests rising and falling in unison, his thumbs running over my palms. I felt sick. How many times had we gone through this routine? Where I would be out of action and he would be the only one willing to get me up and running again. His thumbs smoothing over these stupid, tiny, painful injuries. Where at the time, the release felt so damn good but made me resent myself a little more. Mom was so good at keeping up appearances but I can tell the signs, she's just as broken as I am but she's so good with make up and I think a little bit of the way she can recreate perfection on her face has leaked into her being.

Jughead was here, just like he always was, never pushing me but always prompting me. Sometimes it was the little things like reminding me I had to brush my teeth and sometimes, it was the big things.

Like telling me to let go when I have a grip on my own hands or nails digging into my thighs.

I take my last deep breath and he lets go of my hands, reaching up to move my hair out of my face. "I love you," I say with a sigh. Our love was abundant. Our love sometimes felt smothering and it's unnatural how something can keep moving so seamlessly – like the flow of controlling your own body and he was one half and I, the other, inferior half. It was staggering and swallowing – _I'm swallowed whole_.

He tilts his head, biting his lower lip and I know he can see that my eyes are barely meeting his. "Do you want to talk about it?" he licks his dry lips and sighs loudly, running a hand through messy, three-day-old washed hair.

I shake my head furiously and move closer to him on my bed, our knees touching and I just lean straight forward, my forehead hitting his chest. He wraps me up in his arms and rests his chin on my head. We are still both breathing, in and out, _in and out:_ my new mantra. I keep my bravery in my head that is nestled against him.

He smells like tobacco and cheap deodorant but that smell has always been so comforting, I struggle to remember a day where my own body hasn't been laced with that smell, his denim jacket is hard and ruggard against my face but I take this as a good omen because I know I haven't been able to feel anything in days.

"I don't want to talk about it," I mumble against him. I don't know if he heard me or not with my mouth muffled against his jacket but he exhales loudly and I think he heard me.

"Archie wants us to go over next door so he can see you. And it took a hell of a lot of man-handling to not let Ronnie through the door, she all but kicked the door in when I came up here."

I laugh silently but I manage a smile. "You man-handled V?" I ask. Veronica was sharp and stinging like whiplash. Jughead was calm words and calmer movements.

He scoffs. "Oh yeah," he says laughing. "Or maybe she man-handled me."

"That sounds more like it," I reply. "I can't imagine you surviving a fight with Veronica and living to tell the tale."

"What if I replaced Veronica with Archie and I did win the fight, is that a better tale?" he asks, moving away from me to place his hand under my chin and tilting me to meet him.

"I must admit," I say quietly, "That would be a more believable tale, Mister Jones."

He forces me to meet his eyes and I do, all deep blue and icy. I had tried to promise myself that I wouldn't cry but I didn't keep it. I feel a tear spill out and Jughead puts his lips to mine, running his tongue across my lips, pulling away and then placing a tender kiss on my forehead. "Stop crying," he says in a whisper. "Angels don't suit crying."

He wipes the tear away with the pad of his thumb and wipes it on his jeans. "I don't feel like and angel, Jug. I feel old."

"If you don't feel it, don't be it."

"I feel old, I feel my body is weak and my mind is weaker," I tell him honestly.

He frowns and holds my hands tighter, I think he's keeping my hands hostage as he's not sure what they'd do. I don't even know what they'd do. "Don't force yourself to be strong, you don't need to prove that to anyone," he says, turning my hands over again to look at my palms. "You don't need to prove it to yourself, either, Betty."

I feel his glare on my palms, "Don't look at them, I hate them. I bet you hate them too."

Jughead groans and pulls me in tighter. "There is not a moment in time – ever – in which I would hate any part of you, Betty."

A bit of courage grows in me and I reach up to Jughead's beanie, pulling it off slowly and placing it in the bed between us, I close the barrier in between and I reach up to grab either side of his face, pulling him down to kiss him on the lips, my hands moving down his neck and my nails tracing patterns on him. "I love you so much, do you understand?" I ask him.

"Of course I do," he replies.

My dimples cut deep into my cheeks and I blush red-pink, feeling hotter as the burn kisses them as well. His kisses again almost illuminate this stagnant night, it almost brightens the room – lifting the heavy. This day was painful inside me, I made this day even tougher for the guy who hates the first week of October every year.

I sigh, kissing him on either cheek and then again on the lips. "I'm sorry. And Happy eighteenth Birthday, Juggie."

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_ You wanted angst, you got it! From Betty's POV. Check out _**Vanilla Lips and Cigarette Tips**_ if you want more Bughead on a story, not drabble, sort of level.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Summer Sun**_

Warning: Somewhat smutty

* * *

The Summer smells so much like chlorine and burning tar. Each sticky step melts my Docs to the pavement as I make the walk around town with the flicker-filled Betty who bounces with every approaching step that mismatches mine. The odd ball and the Angel.

The Southside was becoming as much her home as it was my welcomed one. Sometimes she stared at the jacket when I wore it. Sometimes I watched her smooth it over her bare skin that was decorated with lace from top to bottom, bare feet on the lino of the trailer that we were supposed to leave alone, but naturally, we didn't.

When Betty came over, the night was dark and didn't feel like the night at all, it was the smell of sweat and leather and pine that moved through the trailer, it was the feeling of sweat on my forehead and damp tank tops and vanilla scented shampoo and a hell of a lot of chlorine that burned my nose. She had opened the door of the trailer somewhat gently and closed the door with her hand cradling the door handle but she was all summer-storm thunders and afternoon lightening. It was the echo of her light steps intertwined with the heavy-deep sighs as she padded through that caught my attention. The summer breeze moving through lifted the smell of her summer-burned skin and coconut moisturiser that seemed unnatural on her skin because she was trade-mark vanilla and light pink lips, she was not summertime coconut. Summertime coconut didn't match the smell of my menthol cigarettes and mint-fresh gum.

I was sitting on the ledge of the window of the trailer with my leg dangling down, kicking the leg of the table and the window was open wide, my head in my hands and the discarded packet of menthols resting by me. The Serpents seemed to have a never ending stash of a lot of things, bags of weed, bags of cash, bottles of Jack and cartons of cigarettes.

They say that smoking is a dirty habit; but that was exactly what it was now. A habit. A brief get-away that keeps my mind clear and keeps me busy. Keeps my hands occupied and makes me a feel a little good.

Some of the ash flicks into the trailer and rolls down my legs, she doesn't miss it, I know she sees it. She eyes the ash that runs down my leg and onto the ground. I keep a smile to myself when I watch her eyes turn beady and her hands find their way to her hips.

She looks like summer-storms and the air she's giving off _feels_ like it too. Like crashing and rolling, like spikes and daggers. I don't know if anyone else sees it but her eyes are deeper than Sweet Water River itself. Her skin is like velvet and burned like crimson.

There's crimson in the sky tonight, it was painted blue and purple and pink and crimson like her skin; twilight screamed at me right now as I took a drag of my cigarette and she fingered the empty packet of menthols on the table. "Is this yours?" she asks, pulling out a blunt from the empty packet.

" _No_ ," I lie.

She exhales loudly and starts rolling it around in her hand, feeling it, running her smooth fingers up and down it's length, lifting it up to smell it… "You like this?" she asks, not understanding that blunt in her hands at all.

"It just smells weird," I explain. "Just a little different to what you're used to."

"Jug," she says, eyeing me again like I'm a stranger, "Stop condescending me."

"Are you used to it then?" I ask her, not turning to meet her Sweet Water River eyes. "Or are you _not_?"

She scowls at me, chucking the packet back on the table where it belongs. Her hair is long, damp and knotty; unbrushed. What I would do to go over there and run my hands through that damp-long hair. To get my hand a little lost in those knots and _pull_ … "Where were you today?"

I laugh to myself and chuck the butt out the window with the rest of the collective, I swing my leg over so I'm sitting on the ledge barely and I look at Betty, smiling at her. "Where were _you_?" I ask her.

She bites her lip and spins on the balls of her feet and back again, moving through my world to meet me at the ledge, she leans against my knees and wraps her arms around my neck, burying herself in the crook, her lips warming me up as they speak against me. "Swimming. With V and Archie, they wanted to come and get you but I figured you might want a break from them."

"You figured correctly," I mutter against her own neck, tasting all of summer and vanilla and the island like coconut. "You keep getting in my head and reading it."

"Where have you been?" she asks again.

" _Gone_."

Betty groans and pulls tighter on my neck, paining me but making me feel like I have been completely gone since she's not been here. "Where have you been?"

I pretend to hiss. She will find it a sick, not funny-at-all kind of a joke. "Southside."

"Gone Southside, huh?" she says, I try and block out the malice in her voice, I try and only hear light and summertime. I'm not good at blocking out Betty. I never have been.

I pull away gently from her, kissing the inside of her arms as they move distantly from me. Dots on the white of her wrists and the crimson of her chest by the swell of her breasts, I kiss lightly on her heart and my hands find their home on her hips where they dip and pool. I move her tank a little to show me where her breasts swell the most and where the beat of her heart hides under; I smirk at the mark on her chest that she uselessly tries to hide, I see her blush as she looks down. I run the pad of my thumb over it and look up to her. "You're blushing," I tell her.

She leans down to meet her forehead with mine and she looks into my eyes, the deep blue is more like a deeper black, a yearning, _burning_ black. Her hands have a slight trembling grip on my shoulders still; I couldn't pull away enough. "And you're being vague."

I feel the summer on my cheeks because they're reddening and burning and feel like the sun is on them but it's just her questioning glare on me that's making me feel this way. "Betts…"

"Jughead."

I feel like moving her out of the way to reach for that menthol packet but I try not to, my distraction was right here with me with a warmth against my knees and a rope made of her skin around my neck and shoulders. My distraction needed another distraction for me. "Have you ever smoked a cigarette?" I ask her.

She frowns; I see her forehead wrinkle and her lips pout that I just want to pull between my teeth and pull and pull with my tongue on her tongue and my hands running in-between her roughly and the sticky, sweet-sour taste of her skin in my mouth. "No."

"Do you want to try?" I ask her.

I move her out of the way, shoving her hips from my knees and keeping me from pulling her right down on to the lino floor and running my knuckles up and down her thighs and deeper. I stand up and pull out a stick from the packet, I reach deep into my pocket of my jeans and pull out the small packet of gum I have in them, pulling out a stick from that particular packet and handing it to her, raising an eye brow.

Betty eyes it suspiciously. "What's this for? You trying to tell me my breath stinks?"

I laugh and look down, shaking my head. "It'll make things a little easier."

I hear her say something like; _"things can't be harder than this_ ", but I ignore her. She places the gum in her mouth and I move my hands to prompt her to keep chewing. She places the menthol between swollen, rose-pink lips and I reach up with my lighter to light it.

She just stands there, all denim shorts and tank top before me and doesn't do anything, I inhale deeply and move my hands up my body, encouraging her to inhale. "Breathe, Betts."

She does and her eyes squint and her faces contorts and then she places her fingers along it and grabs the cigarette from her mouth and shakes her head; coughing. "I can't," she says through coughs.

I hold back my laugh and take the stick from her, inhaling deeply for real this time, letting the smoke take me. "You get used to it," I say with a shrug.

"I miss you," she says, leaning her head on my shoulder.

"I miss you too, _Sunlight_."

"Stop calling me that," she whines which just makes me miss her more even though she's right here with me, in my world.

"There's no world if there's no sun, though, Elizabeth. My Sunlight girl," I say quietly, running my free hand under the straps of her tank. She shies away.

"I have tan lines, they're hideous."

"Just proves to me you're born of the sun, Betty."

She moves away, sun light in the dark night moving with her and she goes to sit on the floor in the sitting area in front of the fan that makes the obnoxious noises and pretends to be giving relief during the summer heat. She's criss crossed legs and leaning back on the palms of her hands, letting the breeze pick her. I discard my next cigarette butt to the collective and move to the sitting room, criss crossing my own legs in front of her – my knees to hers.

She sits up and puts her hands on her knees – my eyes to hers, but this time, I lean forward and take both her hands in mine, moving my hands higher to run my thumbs over her wrists, strumming her pulse. She sighs against my touch, she bites her lip as if she's trying to remember every single time I've done this to her and she'd be thinking of ten million different times because I will never, ever have enough time in this world to do it as many times as I want to.

"How's things on the Sunny Side Up, side?" I ask her, smirking.

She laughs, belly shaking, head throwing. "Where do I start?"

"Start by just telling me," I reply.

She animatedly tells me the grand adventures of Veronica and Archie, how Kevin misses Joaquin and how Polly is the greatest mom. All the while I feel her pulse and I listen to the sound of her voice in my head all without really listening to a word. I just needed her here with me, no matter the circumstances.

"I can't lose you," I say without thinking.

Betty is shocked by my comment and her pause and silence is so loud, I can hear it buzzing in my deaf ears. "You won't," she says quietly, moving closer to me, on her knees, shifting between us.

She pushes me down onto the floor, I think she thinks she's moved me softly but my head bangs on the floor and her nails are digging into my skin. "Good."

"I'm here. With you."

"Are you?" I ask her. "I want you with me all the time."

"I'm with you all the time."

"In my mind, you're with me all the time," I reply.

She frowns, she's not happy. This frown makes me sad because I think she feels a little sad. "This is all temporary."

"Until we can skip?"

"Until we've finished school and we can skip."

Reality is harsh and unforgiving and it doesn't care if you're in love with the girl who was the sun. The reality was all laid out in this trailer with the cigarette butts and the leather jacket hanging off a mismatched chair and the dark of my hair against the bright-light pink of her swollen lips.

We're lying on the floor with her on my body and her mouth on my neck and I know she's whispering every single sweet nothing into my ear with her tongue on my lobe and her hands tracing the smallest circles on my skin, my stomach. Her nails digging into my hip bones.

I could roll her over right now, rip that material off her and put my mouth on a thousand different places, suck her skin into my mouth, bite until I drew blood and run my teeth over her nipples until she cried out and arched her back on the floor, move my hands down between her and rub her until she was bucking against me. I could kiss her tenderly, one million tiny butterfly kisses with my lips and my eyelashes, all over her skin and kiss her softly over lace, tongue lapping at the gap filled lace with my fingers dancing at the bands of them. I could fill her with all of me and watch her ride me from above, choosing the rhythm myself and guiding those hips onto mine. I could do a lot of things right now, I just needed to choose.

I decide to shift and I move her onto the floor, her chest rising and falling and her stomach sucking in with anticipation. She's all shaky sighs and trembling hands as I uncover her barely covered skin; no bra. She moves her hands up, smoothing through knotty, vanilla-coconut hair and her arms high above her head.

I move slowly down her skin, kissing her lightly, licking her stomach, dry lips catching on the smooth of her velvet. I move the denim over her knees which she helps with, lifting her hips to meet my dry lips again – I lick my lips before I taste her thighs; I bite a little too hard and she flinches and sucks air through her teeth. I smile against her thighs, outer then inner. Inner thigh twisting between my teeth. She moans for more. She moans my name; " _Jughead_ ," she moans.

She tastes like summer and islands and a little bit like cigarette and she's moving herself more into my mouth because hell, she's always loved it. She likes the feeling of my teeth and my tongue and the way I feel when I taste her and her hands get knotted in my hair. I taste the chlorine on her and the water she's been in. She turns a little dirty when she says; " _I wish you would fuck me."_

She's radiating, she's turning into the sun I know she is and she's shaking and arching and shimmying closer and I continue lapping the gap between her thigh and her folds, I keep licking, I keep biting, _shit_ , I inhale her skin into my mouth.

I can feel the warmth on my face, I can smell her and my mouth is so close to her centre, I reach up to grab one of her breasts in my hands, flicking her nipple and pinching a little to roughly and she sucks that air between her teeth again. "Shit, Jug…" she whispers.

I keep kissing her skin until she's twisting beneath me, making me smile. Making me feel like a _god_. I notice several marks, ones that she reaches down between us to touch. I move back up her body, being more gentle, kissing softly.

I whisper in her ear how much I love her and I move my nose along her jaw, along her collarbone, back up to move my nose along hers, I lick her neck, I bite behind her ear.

She moves her knees to trap me between them, a vice that I'm not going to fight. Not now, not ever.

It wasn't about how badly I wanted her, because I have always wanted her so badly that it felt somewhat like punishment but it was more about her being here, with me, under me. _Around_ _me_. I was drowning in her and she was letting me, not giving me a single hand of help. I could feel myself straining against the denim of my own jeans, I moved against her, I push against her a little too roughly but I do it again and again and fuck, it felt so fucking good.

As I moved against her, I kept my mouth on her neck. I moved quickly to take a nipple in my mouth and I bit down and she screamed out. She begged me to do it again. I whisper against her ear, telling her something stupid about how I'd make her come just to see her eyes flicker and grow wide in the dark. I circle my hip against her, kissing and kissing and never stopping kissing her lips until I feel my lips become a mess and I see hers swelling on the right side, "Take your jeans off," she begs me.

I don't hesitate, they're off in a flash and dumped above her head. I move my hand in-between us and separate slick folds, a finger dipping in and coating before I move into her so quickly, she throws her head back.

Her eyes flutter and her hips start circling in time with mine, moving me deeper and deeper until I feel that I'm one with her, I don't think I can get any deeper, I won't stop from trying though because everyone loves a trier. I'm slow. I want to be so much faster than I am but I'm slow, my body is singing, I'm soaking, _I'm so soaked in her._

"Do you like it when I touch you like this, Betty?" I ask in sync with my pushing. "I like to touch you like this," I say rolling a nipple between my fingers.

She's humming and I think she's singing too. My eyes roll to close but she grabs my chin, nails in my cheeks. "Look at me."

Goosebumps form on her arms as I go to move her hand from my face, I take the hand and kiss her palm and put it above us once more, a vice of my hand forming on her wrist. She licks over her over-bitten-swelling lips and I take her tongue and lip in my mouth, biting down, tasting her. Sunlight's hair is fanned out above us, creating an aura around her, her head moving up and down with every push, push, push, she's tightening around me. I feel whole.

I keep circling, circling, pushing and pushing and pushing and her eyes are rolling, mine are too. I keep my eyes shut, trying to keep up. She tries to move her hand again but I keep it locked above us, I kiss her neck, I lick the skin where I've marked, I lick it gently, I bite down roughly. "You love me?" I ask her.

She nods; "Fuck yes, I love you, Jughead."

"You love me, Elizabeth?"

"You love _me_ , Jughead?" she challenges breathlessly.

"I love you," I say against her.

Pink is smeared all along her face, down her neck, along her jawline, _over me_ , I am guessing. I feel whole and complete and filled and _filling_ and I keep moving against her, like the river on the banks, like my body on hers all the time. "I'm coming, Jughead," she whispers.

She's tightening and pulsing and her nails dig so deep into my shoulder blades, I feel scratching and knives and daggers and my skin pulling and scratched. She meets my eyes, she digs a little deeper and a little more painfully but how can I feel any of that when I feel the tightening in my stomach and the swirling, deep down in the deepest part of me. My head is throbbing and I become faster, skin slapping against skin and the hot-flushed sweat dripping from me and onto her, a sweat bead running between her breasts, the smell of spit and hot and summer all wrapped into one. "Shit!" I cry.

I collapse on her with my body on her body, my heart on her beating heart, my head on hers and my lips on her jaw, my hands running along her sides and resting in the dips of her hips.

She's smiling against me with her hands wrapped in my hair and the smell of coconut on my lips and in my mind. "I love you, you know that right?" she asks me.

I knew it, right down in the deepest deep of me. I knew it. I felt it. I _needed_ it. "I know it, Juliet sunlight, beauty of the sun."


	7. Chapter 7

_**Betty's Diary**_

Warning: Smut, Angst, heaps of Angst.

* * *

I got to feel him today. Really feel him. He's tense; his eyes are red-webbed blood shot. He doesn't show me his hands, he won't let me run my thumbs over what must be battered-bruised knuckles. He was hooded-dark lids and bite-swollen lips.

But he was here, with me; he melt-shivered under my hands. He was dotted kisses. He was…

He just _was_.

"Juggie?" I ask.

"Shush, Betts, let me feel the sun."

So we lie in the sun. But it's setting and it's barely shining through the covered window of my bedroom while we're on the carpeted floor.

* * *

I got to see him today. But I don't think he saw me. All he saw was the photo of the four of them, in a glass-cracked frame with unused-house-not-a-home dust on it. He rubbed the dust off with his thumb, he rubbed his thumb off on the leather of his jacket. Apparently it wasn't a _'leather jacket'_ it was simply _'Leathers'_.

The sound of his breathing was staggered-cracked just like the glass of the photo. But the photo was screaming-calling to me because right down the middle where he held his sister's hand in the photo was the deepest heart-crack of them all. The glass spoke in volumes, it spoke louder than him. His mom and sister in Toledo.

And his dad in the cells.

And him, here in Riverdale.

With _me_.

"Are you ok?" I whisper against his shoulder.

He snigger-shrugs, he kiss-murmurs. "I'm ok, Sunlight, I'm ok, I'm ok…"

He repeats his prayer. He convinces himself. He's telling himself.

 _But I'm not ok._

* * *

I got him back today. Mom was in LA soaking in Pina Coladas and he was soaking in me. Leathers was lying on the floor and I tasted his skin all summer-burnt and red-tight skin. His cheekbones were flushed and so were mine. We matched. We were one.

"You're the relief of a tense neck crack," he laughs at me. "You're the feeling you get when your chest isn't tight anymore."

"I don't know what that feels like, Juggie," I laugh back.

He smiles silently. "I'm glad for it."

"You know you got a home in me, right," I ask him.

He smooths his hands up my thigh, in between, loud-snapping the lace against my skin, running his finger along as if it were dancing. "My home is where you are…"

"Where you are is my home," I tell him.

I look into his eyes but his eyes are staring at my lips, I bite mine and he bites his. He moves to me, he bites mine, and I groan on him. "You kill me, you know," he tells me.

"I know."

"Betty…" he sighs and it echo-chills me. "Do you like Riverdale?"

Riverdale was my home. It was all I ever knew. Maybe I was a little too small town minded but my mind was built in this town, in the aging foundations. "I don't mind it."

"Riverdale is dying," he tells me. "Riverdale is crumbling and we're in it, do you think we should run?"

I could laugh, I could roll my eyes and tell him he's stupid.

But I don't.

Because he's dead serious. I can tell with the deep-dark in his eyes.

* * *

I got to see the happy in him today. He spun me around the trailer, he draped his Leathers on me, he tilted me back and kissed my neck. "You're the Sunlight."

Sweat was building on his brow, his cigarette bobbed up and down and ash flew in the air to the ground. "I love you, Jughead Jones," I tell him as I spin.

He was barefoot from the forest, tank top tucked into ripped jeans, summer-in-the-sun tanned. He turns up his bitten-dry lips and grins. "When have I ever not loved you, Betts? You tell me."

I pretend to think as we keep on with the music. "I don't know."

"In the world where you don't exist – actually, no, that's not true."

"Why not?" I ask with lips pressed to lips.

"Only in a world where _I_ don't exist. Because if I was in a life where you didn't exist, I would still love the idea of you."

"You're all pretty words," I tell him, swinging. "Pretty words and a pretty mind."

"Dark and dull throbbing," he replies instead.

I almost stop the swinging.

I grab both his hands and I swing him around instead, he curtseys, I laugh with my head thrown back and tears in my eyes. "I'll stay here with you, if you want me to?" I ask him.

But then I learn the hard way that we don't talk about my leaving. Because even though we celebrate on the floor of the trailer and I feel his hands holding onto mine. The swinging stops and so does the music.

* * *

I got to smell him today. He smells like rust and Mary Jane. I snigger to myself, I don't think I've heard someone call it _Mary Jane_ in a long time. But he's still summer-light and forest floors too.

Rust-Love fills my nose, he fills my lungs. He was silent tonight but Jug doesn't back down from a promise. And he promised to be here with me.

"Love, love, love," he murmurs in my ear. "Sunlight."

Love's speaking to me and I listen with my hands on his skin and his taste on my tongue. I'm trying to talk back but Love is distracting me as he pulls me onto the bed, making me warm; making me alive.

I suck in more rusty air through my teeth as he pushes heavier down on me, I give it back pushing more of me onto him. He abides and he gives me more. Giving me _more_ than more. _All of him_ more, with his heart in my grip and his mind in mine.

He drops his head onto my shoulder. He's whisper-speaking, "I missed you today."

"I miss you too."

He groans lowly and moves against me slowly. He pauses stiffly and pulls off his jeans, he moves my shorts down my legs as he kisses ankles, loving my calves.  
I move for him, I'm arching and bending and spreading, I'm curving closer to him, I'm pulling him closer to me. I'm ignited and on fire, shaking-ready. I held under the weight of undeniable, unwavering love and Love shifts, gripping my thigh to keep it steady, which is ironic because Jug's chest is rising and falling quick-sharp, his eyes on all of me, his lip between his teeth turning strain-white.

He's pumping with his hand, he's slicking himself between me, running his length along my slit. He tests me. In and out. He edges in, slipping into me with his head and eyes rolling back simultaneously.

I hear the creaking of my headboard as he slams a palm against it, I hear nails scratching on the wood as he grips tighter. "Fuck, Betty," he says lowly.

We crash-click our mouths together as he kisses me, tongue on the edge, lips tasting like mint-chewy. He's smiling with my smile, he's moving against my hips. I'm filled and whole. I'm moving with him and he's moving in me. I'm soft with my kisses and strong with my grip on his shoulder blades because I can't ever feel enough of him as he's making my heart quick-skip and my core tremble-pulse.  
I'm feeling pressure and even my head is tight and my skin tighter as he bites down on my shoulder. I hiss a deep breath and bite my lip where the blood tastes like the rust I smell. My heels get tangled in the sheets as I pull my feet up the bed, getting him deeper just so he can hit me like that…

He's pulsing on fire and sweat drip-rolls down the side of his neck, he keeps angling in me, my own hand reaches between me, rubbing circles as he grinds and grinds. "I'm going to come, Jug," I tell him.

"Come for me, Sunlight."

I do as I'm told.

I feel the pulse in my temple, I feel the tightening of my free hand in the sheet. The sound of the straining wooden headboard is ringing in my ear. I'm letting go, I'm shaking so quickly in time with my breathing, I watch my chest rise and fall with his so fast. I come around him, I hear the slick of the wet between us.  
I watch Jughead ride it until his jaw falls slack and my own smile playing on my lips and my tongue just as slick on his neck.

All I smell now is satisfaction in this room.

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:** _ I'll love you forever if you review? I don't know why I carry on with these drabbles but they're fun!


	8. Chapter 8

_**Author's Note:**_ Starting from the begging kinda drabble

* * *

 _ **Juggie Jughead Jones**_

I was eating my pudding with my fingers because I forgot a spoon and I know mom will be mad at me because I got chocolate on my sleeves and now they were sticky.

The girl with the big eyes had been looking at me all break time and she made me feel funny. She walked around with Archie because he knew her because their houses are next to each other but I didn't know her. They played ball and they ate lunch together but now they were both watching me so I stared back and I show them my teeth to scare them. They don't look scared.

The girl with the big eyes had long blonde hair that she had tied up high with a pink scrunchy, she smiled big like the sun and her eyes were shiny and glittery. Her ball rolled across the ground and hit my shoes but I tried to kick it back, but I missed. She followed her ball all the way to my shoes and she put her hands in the pockets of her dress and looked at me. "Do you always sit here by yourself?"

"No," I lie, picking at my sleeves that were dirty. "Do you?"

"No," she says laughing. "I have my friend Archie, he walks to school with me. Mom says he's been my neighbour since we were babies," she says shrugging her shoulders.

"I know Archie," I say to her and I look at my shoes. I knew him first, I knew him before she did but now he hangs out with her and I sit here eating chocolate pudding by myself.

Archie with the red hair and dirt smudged on his face waves from behind her, her Archie was my Archie, the one I always play with but now I don't. He waves at me and runs over to the girl with the big eyes. "Come on Juggie, wanna play?"

I think about it. Maybe I do want to go and play but I always sit here, I don't want to move. "No," I tell him. I can't go because I always sit here and then that would change if I went to play. I know Archie but I don't know the girl. She was different.

He frowns and taps the girl on the shoulder. "Come on," he whispers but I can hear him. "Let's go, Betty, Juggie looks shy."

Betty shakes her head and turns to look at me with her lips screwed up. "My name is Betty."

I nod at her and keep looking at my sleeves but I can feel her staring at me, she's looking at my hat. "I'm Jughead," I tell her, maybe she'll go away.

She laughs at me and her eyes squint in the sun. "That's a funny name," she tells me. "And you're wearing a funny hat."

I touch my hat. People always think it's funny but I don't think it is. "Not that funny," I say.

"We just call him Juggie at my house," Archie says shrugging.

Betty's face screws up at him. "If you know him why doesn't he come and play?"

"Because," he says taking a big breath. "He might be shy."

She keeps laughing but she touches my hand and pulls me. "Come on, Jughead," she says quickly. "You can't sit over here by yourself."

"Yeah I can," I say trying to let go of her but her hand is tighter around mine. "I don't mind."

"I do mind," she says making her eyes big again. "And Archie and me need a new friend."

Archie throws his ball up in the air and catches it easily before giving me a smile showing all his teeth. "You gonna come and play now?" he asks me.

I pull my hand out of Betty's and pull my hat down on my head. "Ah," I say, I don't really want to play but they were both smiling at me. "I'm not very good."

"Well I am," Archie says. "And it's really easy. Betty will teach you, Betty's a good teacher," Archie tells me.

Archie starts bouncing the ball and Betty turns around again. "You don't have any friends?" she asks me.

I shake my head and my hat feels floppy. "Nah, not really."

"Well," she says putting both her hands on her hips. "Me and Archie are here so now you have friend."

"Got it," I say.

Archie keeps throwing the ball. "I was your friend first, you know," he says to me. "Because our dads are friends."

"I'm really good at ball," Betty says missing the ball.

I laugh at her. "You lied, do you always tell lies?" I ask her because mom doesn't like lies.

"No," she says lying again. I can tell because she turns pink.

The ball hits me on the arm because I miss. Then we all start laughing. Betty smiles at me and I try not to smile back but I couldn't help it because she smiles big and it reminds me of the sun in summer.

* * *

Betty was rocking back and forth on her feet with her thumbs in the straps of her bag. "What does Jughead mean?"

I frown and my eyebrows screw up. "What do you mean?"

"My names is Betty and it means Elizabeth," she says licking her lips. "Archie's name means Archibald. What does yours mean?"

I smile at her and my eyes squint but hers do too. "My name means Jughead."

"That can't be your real name, can it?" she asks me.

I feel funny in my tummy when I try not to laugh. I was joking with her and my Dad always jokes so I know it's funny. "My name is just Jughead," I say lifting my shoulders. "It's funny."

She laughs and she laughs loud like booming thunder in the night time. "That is funny," she says laughing again. "More fun than Betty means Elizabeth."

I see my Dad's truck driving up the road and I wait for him at the side, he waves to me and Archie runs past. "See you tomorrow, Juggie!" he shouts.

I wave out to him too and so does Betty. I turn around to Betty and I tell her. "Jughead means Forsythe, I think."

She looks mad and her lips pout out. "You lied to me!"

"See you tomorrow too, Betty," I say waving.

"Will you be here tomorrow with me?" she asks me.

"I'll be here!"

Dad drives the car up next to me and he swings the car open so I can jump in. "Who were you playing with, son?" dad asks me but he waves out to Archie's dad who was next to us.

"Archie and Betty," I tell him. "I like them."

Dad nods at me and clicks the flicker on. "Archie better be good to you or I'll tell Freddie. Betty huh? Alice's girl, probably a Saint like her mother," Dad starts laughing.

I don't think it's a very funny joke so I don't laugh, "Dad," I ask him. "What's a Saint?"

"Everyone else but us, Son," Dad says patting me on the head. "Everyone else but us."

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_ Hope you guys like baby Juggie. More drabbles from the past to come! Keep an eye out.


	9. Chapter 9

A starting from the beginning kind of fic

* * *

 _ **Lonely Sunny Betty**_

Archie and Jughead are sharing a piece of cake that I'm not allowed to join in with because I haven't been invited. I kick my flats along the concrete and mom sees it because she yells out the window. "Don't ruin those shoes, Elizabeth!"

I feel madder now than I did before. Mom is still watching me and I'm still sitting outside watching Archie and Jughead laughing and giggle-shaking as they share cake. Archie sees me and he waves, he yells out; "Morning Betty!" his eyes glitter-shimmer in the morning sun but mom would say it's from all the refined sugar but I don't even know what that is.

I wave back but I still don't get an invite.

I see Jughead sitting on the porch and he's wearing ripped jeans, he has duct tape wrapped around one of his shoes. He was weird and now he's getting weirder and now he thinks it's cool to have duct tape wrapped around his shoes and he tries to ride a skateboard now. He was wobbly-shakes on the skateboard but he told me the more he practices, the better he'll get and he'll be smooth-sailing on the concrete soon. I didn't know he could ride a skateboard and maybe he can't but now Archie and Jughead don't really talk to me much at school because they hang out with all the boys and they got mad at me for hanging out with all the girls. They also didn't like that I had sleep overs and I was too busy to come and watch them skate. They used to always make me come and watch them ride but now I don't get invited to that either.

I sit on the porch and I lean down to put my heavy head in my hands.

"Hey Sunny Betty," I hear in front of me and I hear the click of skateboard wheels on the cold-hard-concrete next to me. Jughead was smiling which is funny because him and Archie don't smile at me at school all the time anymore, only sometimes. "Don't call me Sunny Betty," I tell Jughead because he is mean. "I'm not your Sunny Betty."

"Ahh Betts," he says, teeth showing with a sunny-side smile. "You've always been Sunny Betty to us! That's what we always call you!"

I look around, I look behind him. "Where's Archie?" I ask him.

Jughead shrugs his shoulders. "Gone to take his plate inside, Fred and Mary let us have cake for breakfast, can you believe it?"

"I could have had cake for breakfast too if I wanted to," I say not looking at him because I am lying.

Jughead doesn't believe me anyways because he just laughs at me. His laugh smells like chocolate-happy-laughs and his clothes smell like dirty-pine and minty-fresh cool like his mom's chewing gum but his smile is making me want to smile because I miss my best friends. "Tell me another lie," he tells me.

"I'm not mad at you," I tell him madly.

"Sure," he says. "Are you doing anything?"

I groan. "No," I say. "Because Polly has gone to a friends house and I have to stay here alone."

"Alone isn't too bad," he says biting his lip and scuffing duct-tape-fixed shoes on the concrete. "But if alone is dumb for you then come and hang out with Archie and me!"

My lip pokes out and my eyebrows don't want to be happy and I try not to put my hands on my hips because mom does it but it happens anyways. "You and Archie don't like me anymore, remember?"

Jughead shakes his head and puts his skateboard down before putting his foot on it and rolling it in front of us. "We don't not like you Betty. But we have a crew now and girls aren't allowed in the crew."

"Screw the crew," I tell him.

He looks shocked and Archie comes running behind us. "Hey Betts!" he yells out.

Jughead's mouth is still dropped from what I said. "Screw the crew?" he asks me. "Betty jut said screw!"

I see Archie drop his mouth too. "What?"

I roll my eyes at the two friends in front of me. "I didn't swear! That's not a swear word."

Archie shakes his head and Jughead rolls his skateboard again, looking down at dirty shoes. "We won't tell," Archie says in the end.

I feel my face turning red-hot but I try not to care. "You guys can go," I say. "So you're not bored."

Archie turns around and waves at me from behind but Jughead stands still. "You should come with us to the skatepark," he tells me. "it will be cool and I'll give you a go on my new skateboard…"

I look down underneath duct tape shoes and I see his board is still shiny-sleek and unmarked. It looked cool, cooler than cool. Cooler than anything I have and it's shiny-sleek made me want to try it. I watch Archie try and lift his bike into the air and it looked dangerous and fun and something mom would never let me do. "Juggie," I whisper. "What if my mom doesn't let me go?"

"Just come!" he sounds a little bit like begging and he really, really wants me to go. "Please!"

I shake my head and I roll my eyes and I stomp my foot. "Will you promise to not ignore me at school anymore?"

He nods his head and crosses his heart. "We don't ignore you on purpose," he says slowly. "We don't talk to all girls, it's a thing."

Well I don't like that thing because it makes me miss my best friends and makes me shaking-grumpy kind of mad. "Well you made a promise, Juggie, and you gotta tell Archie too."

He nods and crosses his heart again. "We won't ignore you, we will wave out to you and we will hang out every single weekend is that ok?"

I nod. "It's ok."

Jughead grins at me with only one side and I see his teeth. "What if you tell your mom you're coming over to Archie's house and then we'll go to the park?" he whisper-hushes in my ear.

My eyes grow big. "You want me to lie?"

"I want you to have fun with us, Sunny Betty."

"You'll be there with me, right?" I ask him.

"I'm here, Betty, come on, let's go!"

* * *

More younger Bughead to come xx


	10. Chapter 10

A growing up kinda drabble.

 _ **Sk8r-Hater Jughead Jones**_

* * *

Betty was mad at me and I rolled around on my skateboard, flipping it beneath my feet trying to ignore her madness but it wasn't working because she stood in front of me with her hands on her hips and her glare burning hotter than the sun in summer. "What are you doing?" she asks me. "Why are you here?"

I was flipping in front of her house trying to act like I wasn't here for her but I was. I jump off and snap my suspenders against me. "Came to see Archie," I tell her and now I feel like rolling away because she reads right through me.

"Archie and them have gone on holiday, Juggie, don't lie."

I didn't want to lie. I wanted to tell her the truth and tell her I felt like crap for shoving her off all week. I still remember the look on her face when she came up to me at school and I told her I was too busy to come to her birthday. The boys laughed but I think I saw glitter in the corner of her blue eyes, glitter as in tears. "I'm not lying," I mumble. "I thought he was here…"

"You know he's not here, Juggie. That's why he didn't come to my birthday."

"Your turn to tell me a lie, Betts, come on, tell me a lie."

Betty pouts and taps her foot. "I'm not mad that you didn't come to my birthday."

I gulp down a funny feeling in my throat. "Ok," I say sighing. "I'm a shit friend, I know it."

"Don't swear," she hisses, looking behind her in case her mom was hovering like she always does these days. "You shouldn't swear."

The look on her face with her pouting lips and glittering eyes made me laugh. She was covered in cotton kind of growing up and it made smile. I was turning into my dad these days, all snark and sniggers mom describes it. She's always yelling at me because I'm snark and sniggers but Betty was biting lips and pink kind of grown. "I won't swear," I say zipping my mouth shut. It makes her smile. "But I wanted to say happy birthday."

"You could have told me if you had come to my birthday," she says with her happy smile dropping that I don't want to look at. It makes me feel bad, it makes my skateboard feel heavy under my feet. "You know, the one you were too cool to come to?"

I shake my head and I feel weird in my chest, like it's too tight, like my heart is heavy or something like that. Something too hard to describe. "I wasn't too cool, Sunny Betty," I say exhaling. "Have you ever thought that maybe your birthday was too cool for me to come to?"

Betty looks mad at me. Like bone shaking, hair pulling kind of mad. The same sort of mad when mom watches dad walk through the doors late kind of mad. "You are too cool, Jughead," she says, saying my name perfectly and sourly. "You're too cool these days. You won't even hang out with me any more, you don't come and sit with me at lunch any more – you didn't come to my birthday because you're too damn cool!"

She's huffing and she's got her hands on her hips again. I wasn't too cool, I was just busy. We have different friends now and she's always laughing with her friends that are all girls who think I smell weird and hate skateboards. "I'm sorry," I tell her though because I was. I don't want to lose my friends. "I'll come and have lunch more often, I'll come and sit with you. I'll even sit at the front of the class with you sometimes."

She still looks mad. She doesn't look like she believes me but I wasn't going to back down on this, we've been best friends since the beginning of time. It's always her, me and Archie and maybe I should have just gone to her birthday. Then she wouldn't be fighting me. Her shoulders drop a little bit though and maybe she's forgiving me a little bit. "You promise?" she asks me.

"When have I ever broken a promise, Sunny Betty?"

She smiles a little. Or maybe it was a smirk. She flips her hair over her shoulder and I see it's grown longer in the summer time. "One day you have to stop calling me Sunny Betty, you've been calling me that since we were eight!"

"And now you're twelve and you're a whole lot older than eight," I say shrugging. "We'll be eighty before I stop calling you Sunny Betty!"

She laughs at me and I see her real smile coming through. "You think we'll still be friends when we're eighty?" she asks me.

I think about it. We would be friends forever. "We've been friends since we were six years old, what's another sixty-four years?"

"You mean seventy-two?"

I chuckle. "It's all the same when you're old, and you're really old now!"

"You're older than me!"

I kick my skateboard and flip it up to my hand. "Dad says time flies when you're having fun, have you ever heard that before?"

She nods. "Yeah, maybe it's true because it feels just like yesterday you started coming around here. You'll come by more, right? You'll be here with me?"

"I'm here, Betts, I'll be here."

"Good."

It felt like a long six years but she's right, it's gone by so quickly and now we're twelve and we're still hanging out. "I miss Archie," I tell her. "He was supposed to leave me his bike out but he hasn't and now I only got the board."

She eyes my board and looks up to me, her blue eyes shimmering still. "You never gave me a birthday present," she tells me with a frown.

I feel my cheeks going red again because I didn't have any money to buy her anything. "Sorry Queen B," I mutter, kicking the board again. "I can't get you anything."

"You should have just come to my birthday, then none of this would have mattered," she smirks.

I feel my heart feel funny again. I drop the board and I look at Betty, holding out my hand to her. She stares at my hand and grabs it gently. "You're not going to dance with me, are you?"

I almost choke. "Me? Dance? I don't think so."

I pull her hand and point to the board. "You want me to jump on your precious board?" she asks. "I remember when this was brand new!"

I laugh and rub my face, still holding on to her with the other hand. "I'll let you have a ride."

"But I can't ride!" she moans.

I shake my head. "Just hold my hands, I'll pull you around."

She's shaky on the board and she's concentrating with her lip between her teeth, biting down and holding onto my hands like she's going to fall. "Be careful!" she whines.

I laugh at her and pull her slowly, she's not holding on so tight any more though and she looks like she's having fun but she shakes. "Don't worry, B, I won't let you fall."

She smiles at me and the sun starts setting. "This is so much fun!" she tells me. "No wonder you love it!"

She watch her under the sunlight, "Sorry about the birthday, Sunlight," I tell her.

She frowns at me but it quickly changes as she shrugs on the board. "Don't worry, Juggie, this is a great present."

* * *

 _More young Bughead to come_


	11. Chapter 11

A teenage Bughead kinda chapter

 _ **Love Hurt Elizabeth Cooper**_

* * *

I keep wiping heavy-hearted tears from my face and I feel my mascara smudge. I hadn't felt so alone in a long time. There were people all around me but I feel so small. I feel almost-forgotten small and I wish they would stop looking at me. I don't know if they are looking at me or if maybe the burning at the back of my head was simply that; all in my head.

I sniff loudly and I feel tight-gripping in my head but I should have known this. I wish I could predict the future, or I wish I didn't have such pink-girly-sugar dreams. It was my dreams that betrayed me but every night I would have all the same sickly-sweet dreams of Archie and I, star athlete with me on his side. He was always the root of my smiles, the reason why I laugh. He was the one I was in love with but he wasn't in love with _me_.

Even sitting here in Pop's sipping on my always-vanilla shake was making me feel a little sick and making my tears fall. Archie, Jug and I always come here. We always share shakes. We always come here _together_. How many late night runs had Archie and I done together when he'd text me and ask me to sneak out for our shakes and fries? Did he feel it too? The non-stop-butterflies and the blushing cheeks? Or was that just me?

Of course it was just me. I was the only one with stupid-dumb-butterflies.

He loved me, like a brother would love a sister. He has a love for me that never dies but it's not the same as the love I hold for him. It makes me question the last sixteen years that I've known him. The last ten years in which we spent every moment together. I just question so much.

I feel dead-love in my throat. I can feel it creeping up into my skin. I want to make noise, I want to shout. But why? It isn't fair, is it? It's not his fault that he doesn't love me. It's all mine. It's my fault that I love him. I feel stupid, I shouldn't lose not-loved-back tears. I shouldn't feel this way. I shouldn't feel what I'm feeling.

I wipe my eyes again, I'm grateful that Pop doesn't question my running mascara and he replaces my shake with a fresh one. I keep up here on my own with the burning eyes on me.

"Betty?" I hear in front of me. I look up and see beanie and laptop satchel heavy on shoulders. Jughead.

I sniff out loud and I try to smile at him. I shouldn't have cried in front of Jughead the amount of times I have but as soon as I see him I feel fresh-river-tears on my cheeks again and a sob in my throat.

He frowns and rushes over to me. "Betty, are you ok?" he asks, panic running loud through his voice.

I could lie and tell him I was fine, I was crying happy tears. I'm fine. I'm crying for no reason. In a way, this was true. I was crying for no reason that was worthy. I sniff out loud again and force a smile at Jughead which he doesn't buy. "I'm ok," I tell him.

He sniggers and rolls his eyes and even this somewhat irritating trademark of his, I felt a little ease with him being here. "You don't look ok, Betty," he says stiffly. "You look kind of bad."

"No shit," I say rubbing my face with a napkin. "I feel kind of bad too."

"Tell me a lie, Sunlight, come on," he coaxes me.

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

He sits down across from me, placing his hands on mine. I feel my hands relax. I feel my heart relax. My headache goes. "I'm just being stupid," I mumble. "Nothing to worry about."

"You're never stupid, Sunlight," he murmurs, rubbing my hands. "Is it anything I can help with?"

I laugh humourlessly. "Just you being here is nice," I reply quietly. "But you don't have to be."

He steals a fry and places it in his mouth before grabbing my shake and taking a sip. He raises his eyebrow and gives me a smug smile. "Why? I guess you're referring to the fact that we don't hang like we used to?"

I swallow down a sip of the shake too and I look away from his deep blue eyes, it's only now in the lights of Pop's that I see just how deep they are and how his smile turns up on the right hand side. "I'm sorry we don't, Juggie," I say patting his hand.

He lifts his shoulders and chucks another fry in his mouth. "Don't be sorry, Betty," he says loudly. "Archie ditched too, but you didn't promise a roadie so it doesn't matter. You can't break a promise you never made."

I feel worse than before but I lift my hand to wipe sauce from the corner of his mouth, he laugh-trembles against my hand. "Archie's the thorn in my side too," I tell him honestly. "It's horribly cliché of me to fall in love with my best friend," I grumble.

Jughead raises an eyebrow and runs thumbs over my knuckles before rubbing his beanie over his face. "Well I guess if you had to pick one, he would be the better pick," he laughs. "Because I'm a little unhinged – a little to Donnie Darko for some, apparently. And he's swoon-worthy handsome and Greek God like."

I laugh at Jughead and reach over to shove his shoulder but he keeps his beanie off and I grab it off the table and slide it on. "Do I look Jughead-Darko-esque?" I ask him pointing at the hat.

He pretends to contemplate the answer and taps his chin. "You're missing the dark rings under your eyes and the suspenders."

I point at him and curl my finger. "Hand them over then," I tell him feeling my heart light-laughing-ease.

He snaps his suspenders on his chest and shakes his head. "I have a feeling you're trying to go strip poker on me."

"It would be a good laugh, so maybe it's a good idea."

He clutches his chest and pretends to be insulted. "That's really bad for my ego, you know that right?"

I lean back on the back of the booth and I smile to myself with Juggie's hat on my head. "You're making me blush-happy at the moment," I tell him. "Thank you, Juggie."

He smiles back and leans on the booth as well, shake between his lips. "You don't deserve to feel like this, Sunlight. You're so much more than this, than Riverdale, than Archie."

I feel my cheeks go red again and I pull down his beanie in the same way as he always does when he's embarrassed. But he bites his lip with his smile. "I can't shake these feelings and the worst part is now he knows."

"Is it the worst part though?" Jughead asks. "Or is it better knowing that you're free from the shackles and you know where you stand?"

"You're brain is amazing," I reply. "Because you're right."

"You're set free, you're out in the open. You know where you stand, you can do whatever you want. Move on, we're only sixteen. There's more out there."

I smile to my best friend, the one I hadn't spent time with in forever and it makes me wonder what had I been doing in all that time? It was time wasted because right here, right now, I feel everything I had missed out on since I hadn't been with Juggie. "Thank you, Juggie, for always knowing exactly what to say."

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Anything for you, Sunny Betty," he murmurs but he grabs his bag. "I better go though.."

"Don't!" I say a little quickly, I clear my throat. "Don't go," I tell him, "Just be with me here."

He eases back down and puts his bag next to him. "I'm here, Betty, I'm still here."

* * *

 _The previous three chapters and this one fit one after the other, just so you know. Review?_


	12. Chapter 12

_**As One (But out of sync)**_

Author's Note: Inspired by, but not necessarily compliant with Chapter 18: When a stranger calls.

* * *

There are two people who move as one. They move as one being; one fluid motion. One _body_. Arms and legs carrying their movements. And if she thought he was the blood that pulsed through them, sustenance in veins, feeding of cells.

Then he knows that she is the marrow deep in their bones; a necessity. The creator of blood.

She keeps on fighting, she pushes on.

He feels like he's drawn enough blood, he has no more to give.

* * *

Jughead stares at the time on the alarm clock as it beeps to wake him up. He doesn't switch it off, he doesn't have the energy hit snooze. He thinks briefly on the time and he wonders what Betty is doing at this exact moment. If his thoughts didn't betray him, then the smell of her in his sheets did. He woke up with her smell mixed with _his_ smell and he knows he's fucking lying to himself when he tries to make out that he's unsure of how many days it's been since he last saw her fake smile.

 _Twenty-Three._

She pops up everywhere. In the taste of shakes at Pop's. Shaky tears on Veronica's face, the writing she left on his kitchen table that he hasn't been able to move. In the text messages he reads before he forces himself to sleep at least two hours at night. He's still learning how to perfect that, though. Because sometimes it's a messy forty-five minutes just before school. Or it's a solid sixteen hours and he's missed the whole fucking day. At the moment, there's no in between.

She's the marrow in the bones of his fucked up days.

Betty Cooper is the marrow in _his_ very bones.

Betty Cooper _is him_.

Jughead punches a pillow as the alarm keeps going. He screams into the same one. He realises it smells like her, so he clings on a little tighter.

And then he feels the ache in his jaw, the pulsing of blood in his split lip and then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

"You hate me, don't you?" Jughead asks his best friend.

Archie Andrews wasn't a liar. And Jughead knows that Archie Andrews has a level of loyalty that the Southside wouldn't be able to rival. Archie Andrews also had a weird way of saying exactly what was on his mind even if maybe, Jughead thinks, he shouldn't. Jughead also wonders if he can count how many times Archie opens his mouth in an attempt to make up some lie, but, yet again, Archie Andrews is not a liar and it almost irritates Jughead that his best friend is torturing him in this way. "I don't hate you, Jug."

Jughead sniggers, kicks his boots on the lino floor of the trailer and stops himself from rolling his eyes. "You hate me."

"Betty still loves you she just..."

"Doesn't love what I've become."

Archie scrambles for words again. Jughead can tell. He's frantic and stumbling over his own tongue. He grabs Jughead by the collar and shakes him out, but Jughead can just feel boiling blood. "This stupid jacket is what we hate, but we love _you,_ Juggie," Archie takes a steadying breath. "Betty loves you; I miss you, Jug."

Jug wishes they were kids again. Way back when. When FP and Fred were best buds and they were back up in the treehouse. Or even not that long ago, when he was crashing on the Andrews floor and the biggest issue was Archie burning pizza.

But they're not. Archie is a Northern Suburban Knight in Shining Armour and Jughead is a Southside Serpent earning new fangs while cycling with the training wheels still on.

Hearing Betty's name made his arteries connected to his heart harden and stop pulsing, the blood was coagulating, stiffening and hardening.

Archie's words only made him feel half the amount better, because _'I-love-you's'_ from Archie Andrews were dished out as often as ' _hellos'_ , Jughead doesn't think it as a dig at his best friend, he likes to think of it as Archie just has a big heart.

But he sees his best friend glaring at the leather jacket on his shoulders and then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

Jughead thinks quickly on everything that he has control over.

He has freedom and the trailer is his.

He can ride out at any time, there's no limit to where he can go.

And then his chest feels tight, and his breathing is too shallow.

He can't control his repetitive reading of Betty's last texts.

Or the way he thinks the only way his heart is still beating is because Betty Cooper is still on his mind.

But the trailer is his, the bike is his, though not something he had initially wanted, Hotdog was his. And so were the bad thoughts, the mess of hair on his head, the dark rings under his eyes, the two hours sleep, the love he holds for Betty Cooper, the cigarettes he all of a sudden acquired and the pills Sweetpea insists he'll like.

They're all his.

And then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

Toni has a body that is out of this world. Toni has a mouth with lips that look like they need biting. She has hair you can hold on to. Toni has words that make guys drop to their knees, Jughead knows, because Fangs told him.

She gives him that taste of Southside without the pain. And when there is pain involved, Toni makes a good makeshift nurse. She's seen things before that he's only just learning about and she makes a good teacher. And if Betty was good at teaching him school work, then Toni is schooling him at life. He feels bile at the back of his throat when he thinks of Betty and Toni in the same go. But things are complicated and no amount of digging his snake pit further into Southside was going to change that.

He couldn't be further from the North than he is right now.

Even while sitting in the Red and Black with dust plumes glittering in afternoon sun, Toni is making a passionate speech about showing the true identity of Southside High to Riverdale. And as much as taking photos of the Football team and the Drama class that just so happens to have an uncountable amount of students with nose rings and belt buckles with studs on them, he can't help but think that Toni would have a better chance at portraying this place for what it was. A festering wound that is hard to cover up.

"You've got some dark rings under your eyes, Forsythe," she says with a smirk. "You been up all night or something?"

Jughead reads the bite of her lip and the wink of her right eye. He reads it dirty but he shrugs in reply. "Hmm," he says.

Toni slinks behind his chair, pats his shoulder, ruffles his hair. "Don't worry, Juggie, if you love each other, you'll find your way back."

Do marrow and blood every actually touch? He's not sure.

He flickers briefly between thinking about how he and Betty would find their way back and believing that they had never actually ever fucking lost each other.

He flickers between Toni's lips and Betty's soul.

He flickers between loving Betty and then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

Betty is at Pop's alone. He knows by the way her ponytail is a little lopsided that maybe she didn't have intentions of coming out tonight but she made the effort anyways. He also knows how soft her hair feels and how hurt she must be right now.

Out of selfishness for his own battered feelings, he doesn't approach her. Or he might tell her how much he needs her. How he can't _live_ without her.

But he's at risk of looking like an idiot and his ego can't take another blow.

Her shoulders slump, he watches her hand smooth over her face and then over her hair, she cranes her neck a little; she must be looking at her phone.

He doesn't order, he walks out hungry. He kicks his bike before getting back on it.

And then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

It's sick, because every punch from _Gareth-the-Ghoulie_ sounds like Betty's name against his skin.

He feels Gareth's knuckles sing against the right side of his jaw, his teeth grate against each other but he manages a swing too, weak with his left hand side. _Betty_ , it ghosts.

Some how, Gareth gets ahold of the scruff of his neck and he's trying to tackle Jughead down, but Jug is younger, faster, he spins out, spits blood on the floor and swings his right, stronger hand. _Betty_ , it sings against Gareth's nose.

Gareth laughs manically, "Yeah, you little Serpents tougher than you look, huh?"

Jughead thinks ironically, that Gareth isn't right because if only he knew of the girl that has him crippled most of the time. But he shouldn't be thinking of her when he gets landed a blow to the temple.

He's almost out cold when he hears Sweetpea call his name.

"Betty?" Jughead asks the buzzing in his ears, it surely has to be her.

But then he realises it's not because he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

Jughead feels exposed and he tries to sit up quickly when he sees her, but he also wonders if maybe he shouldn't bother. He has to be dead to be seeing Betty Cooper sitting on the end of his bed.

Once upon a time it was sneaking through bedroom windows. Then crashing out on the overused sofa in the trailer.

Then it was shouting, hateful words. Soft tender kisses in the rain. Wiping tears away in the booth at Pop's. Making himself physically fucking sick because love shouldn't be this hard, right? Betty had promised him that their loves was unshakeable, unmovable, limitless.

She had promised Jughead that their love was as easy as breathing, at what point of their love did Betty become a liar? He wonders.

Now, she was so close that he could smell her perfume, but he could also make out the tracks and paths of her tears thanks to black mascara. And as much as Jughead wanted to look away, he was a man starved. He drinks her in, he soaks up her sun, he wants to feel pain in his palms when she's in his hands. But the way she drips disgust in him hurts him more than it hurts her.

"Why are you doing this, Jughead?" she asks, sniffing.

He thinks of something stupid that might soften his words. But he can't find anything the fits well enough. "It's Southside..."

"Don't!" she hisses. "Don't tell me that! Don't lie to me!" she shakes the room, she slams a fist down on the same pillow he does every night. "Don't do this Jughead," her tears fly. "This is crazy! It's dangerous."

He thinks his love for her is the only dangerous thing around here.

He reaches with a shaky, beat up hand and wipes her tears and she sinks into his hand, closing her eyes. "I love you, Betty. I'd do anything for you. And if that means keeping on the Southside to keep them from you in the Northside, then so be it."

"Run away with me. Please," she begs. "I'm serious."

She slides into the bed with him, shaking with cold even if it's warm outside.

He wonders why she's so cold, why everything hurts. But then he remembers how they got here in the first place.

* * *

He can't keep away from her. But then, he never could. He dreams of Springtime when they were kids, riding bikes with Archie. And he misses that too. The old Archie. The one who wasn't so scared. The one that was funny. But Jughead remembers, they were all funny back then.

He laughs lightly about Betty and how way back when, she used to be a pigtail kind of girl and not much has changed, only that she's now a single ponytail kind of woman.

He had climbed up her window, kissed her a million times after paying the price of Southside, he made it up to her with her thighs around his head and her nails in his hair. He laughed against the insides of her ankles and soft kisses on her wrist and for once, Southside was left on the floor next to her radio.

Jughead lies in Betty's arms with her fingers still playing with a curl at the front of his face. "I want to go, Betty," he tells her honestly. "I want you and I to go, let's go, get out of here."

It was crazy but Jughead knew it was doable. He had arranged everything, he had money, a car. He wanted to skip, get out of here. Betty stops, tilts Jughead's head with her hands and gives him a serious look while frowning. "Are you serious?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" he challenges.

She inhales sharply. "Leave all this mess behind?"

He nods. He nods so hard, he feels like he looks stupid but he was serious and if he could, he would leave now. "You and me, Betts, what do you say?"

She smiles. She kisses him a million times. He smiles against her collarbone and then he remembers how he got here in the first place.

* * *

The SS Camaro is in need of a paint job, but it's enough to do the trick. His heart races and the arteries barely open up but this time, not from pain. From pure, unfiltered excitement.

Jughead is ok, but he's not at the same time.

The sun shines through the window of the car and he knows it should be burning him, it's unnaturally hot today but he feels almost nothing at all. Crashing waves is what he feels in the tightness of his chest and freefalling right in the pit of his stomach. He's scared. He's worried.

He'd give up his entire life just for this.

Betty is two minutes late but the way her ponytail swings with her brisk walk and her suitcase rolling behind her, he can see that those two minutes was part of his time well spent. She was here, and every step on the pavement as she walks to the car feels like they sprout sunflowers from the concrete and her smile is rooting itself in his veins. Just seeing her is completing him. He revs the engine, she opens up.

They look at each other; Jughead lets Betty peer directly into his soul and at one point, he feels her inside of him. She shuts the heavy door, it makes her flinch but she takes a deep breath, steadies herself, closes her eyes. Inhales.

He turns on the indicator to signal out of the street but before he moves, he kisses her cheek. "I love you, Betty Cooper."

Betty smiles like the sun in the middle of Summer, burning him, charred skin. "I love you too, Jughead," she breathes. "Let's go."

"Where to?"

"Our new home," she laughs. "Anywhere!"

Jughead remembers how he got here in the first place.

 _Love_.

* * *

There are two people who are one. With him being the blood that pulses through their body and she being the marrow in his bones.

They do not fight alone, the body floats to the surface while drowning. A constant ticking mind with an equally as consistently beating heart.

They are one.

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_

So, there's actually a chapter in Vanilla Lips when Jellybean comes to stay with Jughead in which they mention that Betty and Jughead had skipped town for a few nights in an attempt to run away, this really could slot in easily there...


End file.
